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Monthly Archives: January 2016

Since 2010, six states—California, Hawai’i, Utah, Illinois, Georgia, and Virginia—have designated January 30th as Fred Korematsu Day, the first day in U.S. history named after an Asian American. The recognition honors the birthday of the civil rights leader best known for resisting Japanese American incarceration during World War II. Several other states, including Michigan and Pennsylvania, have or are considering legislative recognition. This year’s Fred Korematsu Day celebration in San Francisco, which would have been Fred’s ninety-seventh birthday, features a panel that includes Lorraine K. Bannai, author of Enduring Conviction: Fred Korematsu and His Quest for Justice, which the UW Press released in November. As a young attorney in the 1980s, Bannai was part of the volunteer legal team that resurrected Korematsu’s case and got his unjust conviction overturned.

The following excerpt from Bannai’s book reflects on Fred Korematsu’s growing legacy.

Since Fred’s passing, the relevance of his life and case has only grown. His story has remained important as the nation has continued to try to heal the wounds of the wartime incarceration. On May 20, 2011, for example, Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal publicly acknowledged the improper actions of his World War II predecessor, Charles Fahy, when arguing Fred’s case before the Supreme Court. In his blog post “Confession of Error: The Solicitor General’s Mistakes during the Japanese-American Internment Cases,” Katyal explained that while solicitor generals have played important roles throughout history in advancing civil rights, “it is also important to remember the mistakes.”

Citing the evidence presented in Fred Korematsu’s and Gordon Hirabayashi’s coram nobis cases, Katyal related that Fahy was aware of “key intelligence reports that undermined the rationale behind the internment” but failed to disclose those reports to the Court. “And to make matters worse,” Katyal continued, “[Fahy] relied on gross generalizations about Japanese Americans, such as they were disloyal and motivated by ‘racial solidarity.’” He concluded, “Today, our Office takes this history as an important reminder that the ‘special credence’ the Solicitor General enjoys before the Supreme Court requires great responsibility and a duty of absolute candor in our representations to the Court. Only then can we fulfill our responsibility to defend the United States and its Constitution, and to protect the rights of all Americans.” Peter Irons commented that he thought the statement was “good and very long overdue.” “This was a deliberate, knowing lie by Fahy to the Supreme Court. For the nation’s highest counsel to make that statement now is quite noteworthy and admirable.”

Fred’s words have further echoed hauntingly as the country has continued to grapple with issues of race, profiling, and the protection of civil liberties during times of crisis. For example, provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) again raise the specter of indefinite military detention without charges or trial, and Fred’s name and case have been invoked to warn of the danger of compromising due process guarantees. Section 1021 of the NDAA of 2012, still in effect, affirms the authority of the military to indefinitely detain individuals who, in the judgment of military authorities, are considered to have “substantially supported” terrorist organizations. Many criticize that this language is so vague it would allow the indefinite detention of innocent individuals, including American citizens, if the military believed them to be “supporting” terrorism, without charges or trial or other judicial review.

From February 3-6, we will be at the annual meeting of the College Art Association in Washington, DC. UW Press Advancement and Grants Manager Beth Fuget will be representing the Press, unveiling several new books, and meeting with partners to discuss our Mellon Foundation-funded collaboration, the Art History Publication Initiative.

Here is a taste of some recent and forthcoming titles in art history and visual culture we’ll be featuring at the conference, but be sure to stop by our booth (#322) to see our full slate of books. Follow along on social media with #caa2016.

Art History Publication Initiative Books

“Excavating the Afterlife” by Guolong Lai

“Imperial Illusions” by Kristina Kleutghen

“Building a Sacred Mountain” by Wei-Cheng Lin

“Chang’an Avenue and the Modernization of Chinese Architecture” by Shuishan Yu

Forthcoming Books

This publication presents a fresh take on Bhupen Khakhar’s artistic, social, and spiritual interests. With personal and touching contributions by those who knew him, this richly illustrated book is an essential reference to one of the most compelling and unique voices in 20th century art, as well as a significant contribution to the field of international modernism.

The objects featured in this book tell the story of the Endeavour voyage and its impact ahead of the 250th anniversary of this seminal mission’s launch. The surviving illustrations are the most important body of images produced since Europeans entered this region, matching the truly historic value of the plant specimens and artifacts that will be seen alongside them.

The collection contains a wide range of mostly 20th century pieces that illustrate the creative achievements and cultural meanings of art objects produced and collected at a time of great international expansion of the market for African art. The objects are framed and interpreted within academic essays that highlight the significant role that African makers and dealers have played in shaping Western understanding of African art.

Davalos combines decolonial theory with extensive archival and field research to offer a new critical perspective on Chicana/o art. Using Los Angeles as a case study, she presents her most ambitious project to date in this examination of fifty years of Chicana/o art production in a major urban area.

As we head into the national Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday and African American History Month, we are rounding up a selection of readings from the archives which celebrate the vital and varied contributions of black Americans today and throughout US history. These guest posts and books address social justice organizing and activism around issues of race, gender, sexuality, and difference in keeping with Dr. King’s life, work, and lasting legacy.

French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy wrote in Vanity Fair last month that our troubled world needs “a Nostra Aetate for three voices.” That remarkable 1965 Catholic document, he rightly says, “marked the beginning of the end of Catholic anti-Semitism.” Fifty years on, relations between Christians and Jews are immensely better than they have been for centuries. As Lévy underscores, however, a third voice—Muslim—needs to be added more than it has been, and indeed more than ever, to the Christian–Jewish dialogue that continues to make valuable progress.

In the wake of murder committed in Paris and San Bernardino in the late autumn of 2015 by ISIS-instigated terrorists, widespread anti-Muslim campaigns inflame xenophobic fear and hateful acts of revenge. In the two weeks after the December 2 mass shooting in San Bernardino, at least three dozen threats and attacks against Muslim Americans and mosques in the United States have been documented by Oren Segal, director of the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism. How large that number will grow remains to be seen, but there can be no doubt that the imperative for Jews, Christians, and Muslims to stand together in solidarity that resists radicalization and its pervasive violence is ignored at humanity’s peril.

Good models for that solidarity exist. Some of them can be found in Encountering the Stranger. Convinced that the Holocaust, Nazi Germany’s genocide against the Jewish people, profoundly showed what can happen when individuals and religious traditions fail to regard the other as inviolable, the contributors to this book—six from each of the Abrahamic traditions—began their face-to-face work at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) in Washington, DC, where they explored how the Holocaust’s implications for interreligious engagement could advance understanding, cooperation, and mutual support among Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Obviously, this work took place before the mass killing in Paris and San Bernardino in late 2015, but the writers well knew that events of that kind could happen even as we tried to raise voices to prevent such atrocities.

At USHMM, minefields tested even the mettle of a group committed to Jewish–Christian–Muslim trialogue. Primarily provoked by interfaith disagreements about conflict in the Middle East and by intrafaith controversies concerning how a tradition’s scripture and teachings should be interpreted, unruly passions arose from time to time in our deliberations. But we were able to tame them, and our engagement encouraged friendship that has lasted far beyond our joint effort in producing a book. The reader will be the judge, but Encountering the Strangeroffers reflection and insight that can encourage the steps that need to be taken to increase not only the safety and security but also the generosity and hospitality that mending of the world presently and urgently requires.

The Jewish philosopher Martin Buber wisely observed that “when a man is singing and cannot lift his voice, and another comes and sings with him, another who can lift his voice, the first will be able to lift his voice too.” As we head into 2016, the need is for three voices—Jewish, Christian, Muslim—to find ways to sing together in ways that lift each other and all of humankind.

SEATTLE, WA—A four-year, $682,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation awarded to the University of Washington will help four university presses and the Association of American University Presses (AAUP) create a pipeline program to diversify academic publishing by offering apprenticeships in acquisitions departments.

The collaborative project involves the University of Washington Press, the MIT Press, Duke University Press, the University of Georgia Press, and the AAUP. The University Press Diversity Fellowship Program will create cohorts of four fellows per year for three years. The program will recruit fellows who have significant personal experience and engagement with diverse communities and a demonstrated ability to bring the understandings gleaned from such engagement to the daily work of academic publishing.

“The University Press Diversity Fellowship Program builds on the University of Washington’s longstanding commitment to inclusion and social justice,” said Gerald Baldasty, UW interim provost and executive vice president. “The program aligns with UW president Ana Mari Cauce’s mission to support and sustain diversity at the university and the communities it serves through her Race and Equity Initiative.”

Fellows will have the opportunity to connect with one another and engage with industry colleagues at two AAUP annual meetings. “AAUP congratulates the University of Washington Press, along with the other AAUP member presses participating in the Diversity Fellowship Program,” said Peter Berkery, AAUP executive director. “Because diversity is a core AAUP value, we are eager to welcome Diversity Fellows to our future annual meetings. I know other member presses will be interested in this program, and I look forward to helping our community build on its success.”

The University Press Diversity Fellowship Program is the first cross-press initiative of its kind in the United States to address the marked lack of diversity that characterizes the publishing industry. Although university presses have long fostered and supported diversity-related fields such as Native and Indigenous studies; African American studies; women’s, gender, and sexuality studies; and Asian American studies, the fellowship program represents a significant investment in creating career development opportunities and a supportive environment for diversity publishing.

Principal investigator and UW Press editor in chief Larin McLaughlin said, “From editorial strategy and list development priorities to growing revenue from emerging markets to the finer points of culturally sensitive copyediting and cover design, enhancing diversity within the workforce of university press publishing has the potential to improve the relevance and efficacy of publishers for an increasingly diverse audience of scholars, students, authors, and readers.”

Another desired outcome of the fellowship program is to develop best-practice strategies and tactics for fostering diversity at all levels of the profession. Further, this collaboration will focus attention on the centrality of diversity in all its forms to the future of global academic discourse and, it is hoped, will inspire related efforts to prioritize diversity more broadly in the publishing industry.

“One of the prime joys of our job as editors in the university press world is that we publish books that truly make a difference to academic and broader communities,” said Mick Gusinde-Duffy, editor in chief of the University of Georgia Press. “We’re taking positive steps toward a more diverse cohort of publishing professionals that takes transformative publishing to a whole new level.”

Gita Manaktala, editorial director of the MIT Press, commented, “We expect to learn a lot from our three fellows and hope that each will find lasting and rewarding opportunities in university press publishing. If so, the major beneficiary of this program will be the university press community itself, along with the wider communities of scholars, students, and general readers we serve.”

The program will offer each fellow opportunities for one-on-one mentoring as well as monthly cross-press video conferences led by staff at partner presses, covering a range of topics designed to supplement the hands-on training.

“We are grateful for the opportunity to participate in this much-needed diversity fellowship program,” said Courtney Berger, senior editor and editorial department manager of Duke University Press. “This fellowship will help Duke University Press to foster a more diverse staff that better reflects the wide-ranging perspectives and backgrounds that inform the Press’s publications, our authors, and our readership.”

Outreach and recruitment by the program’s selection committee will begin this month, with the first cohort of Diversity Fellows starting their apprenticeships in June 2016.

“The University of Washington is extremely proud that our press is leading this transformative initiative,” said David L. Eaton, dean of the UW graduate school. “And we are truly grateful for Mellon’s vital partnership and support.”

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:

Larin McLaughlin, Editor in Chief of University of Washington Press, at 206-221-4995 or lmclaugh [at] uw.edu.

We are thrilled to kick off our 2016 conference season with the 130th annual meeting of the American Historical Association in downtown Atlanta, Georgia from January 7-10, 2016. This year’s theme is “Global Migrations: Empires, Nations, and Neighbors,” and we have a great new lineup of history books to show off.

UW Press senior acquisitions editor Ranjit Arab will be representing the Press at booth #1709. If you are attending the meeting, please come by to learn more about our new and forthcoming titles across global, national, and regional histories. Use the #ReadUP and #AHA16 hashtags to follow along with the conference on social media.

Drawing on previously unavailable primary sources, historian Kawamura reexamines the controversial role Emperor Hirohito played during the Pacific War and re-situates Hirohito as a conflicted man who struggled to deal with his role as monarch.

Across eighteenth-century China a wide range of common people forged government documents or pretended to be officials or other agents of the state. This examination of case records and law codes traces the legal meanings and social and political contexts of small-time swindles that were punished as grave political transgressions.

Wei reconstructs what life was like for the early Chinese and Japanese pioneers and reveals how the treatment of Asian Americans resonates with the experiences of other marginalized groups in American society.

On January 5, 1933, workers began construction on the Golden Gate Bridge. Moving beyond the familiar accounts of politics and the achievements of celebrity engineers and designers, Building the Golden Gate Bridge by Harvey Schwartz is the first book to primarily feature the voices of the workers themselves. This is the story of survivors who vividly recall the hardships, hazards, and victories of constructing the landmark span during the Great Depression. In this guest post, UW Press Senior Designer Thomas Eykemans walks us through his creative process in designing the book’s cover.

In considering ways to find a unique approach to the design of a book about an overly familiar subject that has already been portrayed in countless photographs and films, I came across a pair of commemorative plaques that had been attached to the bridge when it was completed in 1937. They featured spectacular Art Deco typography, iconic of that era, which proved to be an irresistible starting point for the cover design.